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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645011">what comes after dawn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn'>chidorinnn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Crying, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pining, post-Camelot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:41:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many iterations of his king in Chaldea — each a different possibility, a different path she might have taken over the course of her life. Bedivere knows, logically, that he owes his service to all of them — but it’s the last, the one bearing a lance that wears the face of a goddess that should have never been, that he can’t bring himself to face.</p>
<p>Or: after Camelot, Bedivere struggles to adjust.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bedivere | Saber/Artoria Pendragon | Lancer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>what comes after dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Compared to the last 1500 years, Chaldea is a quiet place.</p>
<p>It's a strange thing to say, when its halls are bustling with Servants of all manners and walks of life, the whole facility charging ahead on a seemingly unending quest to set right the history of this world — but for the first time in many a moon, Bedivere finds that he can relax here, just a little. He will fight when he is called, but he is no longer one of the only few who can.</p>
<p>It's not a <em>bad</em> quiet, just an unexpected one. It leaves him feeling uncomfortably aware of the enormity of his thoughts — the sheer impossibility of his existence here, in this facility so far removed in a future that he could scarcely imagine not too long ago, surrounded by friends that he's long made his peace with abandoning. He was never supposed to have any of this, and yet all of it is <em>here</em> — his for the taking.</p>
<p>There is still a place for him, here, at the side of his oldest and closest friend. The reality that there are so many iterations of her in this place — his king in her prime, as he remembers her; his king as a child, barely on the cusp of greatness; his king corrupted two different ways, manifested in two individuals who walk a darker path; his king laughing and smiling, playing in the summer — it warms him and baffles him in equal measure.</p>
<p>His king in his most recent memory of her, prior to coming here — not quite a goddess and yet bearing the same lance, with far too much power for that fragile mortal form to bear — suspended in time before Rhongomyniad would inevitably consume her heart — it's that iteration that baffles him most of all.</p>
<p>Bedivere knows, logically, that he owes his service to all those different iterations of her, and yet it's in all of them that he sees his sins reflected — but it’s different with the last, the one bearing a lance, that he can’t bring himself to face. There is no iteration of her that <em>pushes</em>, when they’re together; she’s never been the type to do so. She’s quiet with him in a way that she isn’t with the other knights. Sir Gawain, Sir Tristan, Sir Lancelot, Sir Mordred — they flock to her, all those different iterations of her, like they all once did years ago.</p>
<p>He and his fellow knights fall into place alongside the rest of her iterations. It's different here in a way that none of them could have possibly imagined, back in their original era, but it manifests in the various ways those iterations regard their service. The one that bears a sword is as regal and proud as he remembers, and it’s as if no time has passed at all. The one that has become corrupted holds them at a distance, though her respect for them hasn’t dulled from whatever has happened to her. The one that is a child adores them all.</p>
<p>It’s the one that bears a lance that keeps her eye on him. He doesn’t always notice when she’s watching — but sometimes, when she’s surrounded by either his fellow knights or by other servants, she’ll catch his eye. There’s an understanding in there, somewhere — a shared acknowledgment that despite where they are now, she remembers where they once came from. Maybe not the specific era — if there is anything Chaldea has proven to him, it’s that there is a higher chance that the history he remembers will not necessarily be shared even by the very people he remembers from that history — but she knows, all the same.</p>
<p>He’s aware of her presence, just as he’s aware of that of all the other iterations of her. It’s his duty as a knight, the barest minimum he can do for her here — and yet, it still catches him off guard when the one that bears a lance approaches him. He’s given his life for this person; he would give it again, gladly, if asked.</p>
<p>—but seeing her like this, here in this blessed place where their old troubles are literally a world away, is too much.</p>
<p>"You've been avoiding me, Sir Bedivere," she says. She says it bluntly, but not cruelly. No threats of the world's imminent demise, outside the scope of her purview, color her words.</p>
<p>There is no otherworldly light that gleams behind her eyes. He knows, logically, that the king that stands before him now is not the Lion King he left behind in that ruined era of his — but she holds herself before him the same way the goddess did, and her gaze pierces him the same way.</p>
<p>"If I have wronged you in any way, in this place," she says, placing one hand over her chest and inclining he head, "then you have my sincerest apologies."</p>
<p>"I—no, that's not..." Bedivere splutters in a half-formed response, and he thinks, absurdly, back to one of those silly little tales of romance he'd seen Sir Tristan regarding that morning, the all too trite confession of <em>It's not you; it's me</em>. "You have done nothing wrong, my liege. If the blame for this is to lie with anyone, then it should be me."</p>
<p>She presses her lips together, her eyes softening ever so slightly. "Please correct me if I am wrong," she says, "but if I'm understanding this correctly, then you are not the Sir Bedivere I once knew... and likewise, I am not the king you once served."</p>
<p>"Yes, that is how the doctor explained it to me," he replies. "Chaldea is a place of infinite possibilities. It stands to reason that the greater the legacy, the greater the number of those possibilities that manifest here."</p>
<p>"And I am but one of those possibilities," she says. "The same as each of my sisters that have made their home here."</p>
<p>Bedivere nods. "Yes, that sounds correct."</p>
<p>She diverts her gaze, looking upward at the lights that line the ceiling — so much brighter than anything they could have imagined back in their own era. "A king who took up the lance, Rhongomyniad... why does this possibility trouble you so, Sir Bedivere?"</p>
<p>He registers it as an accusation first, though he'd like to think he knows his king well enough to feel confident that that's not the case. It stings all the same, because — because he's not like this with any of the other knights that had stood against him, towards the end. Sir Lancelot was never an issue, and Bedivere and Sir Gawain have long since made amends. Even regarding Sir Tristan these days no longer inspires the same sort of anger and revulsion that he'd grown accustomed to, in those last days.</p>
<p>So what is it about this king, specifically, in this place that all but guarantees that his worst fears about her situation will never come to pass?</p>
<p>"At the very end of days," he says, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice, "I gave my life to stop not a king, but a goddess. There were no traces of her majesty left — I <em>know</em> this — but that goddess wore her face. This was made possible by the very lance you bear."</p>
<p>It's shameful of him, to cling to that history. This place has given him a second chance that he could never have imagined, just days ago. There's peace here, like he's never known it before — an opportunity to simply <em>be</em> with all that he holds most dear. The king that stands before him is but one possibility out of many — one that may very well cease to exist, outside the record of <em>what could have been</em>.</p>
<p>"And though the situation has been resolved," says his king, "you look upon my face, and you cannot help it, but sometimes you see that goddess. Am I wrong?" He shakes his head. "You see that goddess because for a very long time, that goddess was your mission. And now that that mission has come to an end... you still see that goddess. Because given where I am now, it is inevitable that I will one day become her."</p>
<p>Bedivere averts his gaze, because — because there is no otherworldly gleam behind her eyes. This would be easier, he thinks, if it were the Lion King standing before him today, and not an iteration of his king that wears the same face, and is better off for it. Is it a failure of his, that this iteration exists at all?</p>
<p>"And the reason I have this lance," she continues, "is because of you. Am I wrong?"</p>
<p>His face crumples. It's shameful, so shameful, but he can't help it. "No, my liege," he chokes out.</p>
<p>His king takes one step towards him, two — and with two fingers, she touches his chin and gently tilts his head upward so that he can no longer avoid her gaze. "But I am no goddess here," she says, "and I never will be, so long as I remain here. At least... that is my understanding of this situation."</p>
<p>Her hand leaves his chin, then, and drifts upward to cup his face. She runs her thumb over his cheek, to wipe away — when did he start crying? Why is it so difficult, here, days after he's succeeded in his mission, to stop?</p>
<p>"And though you may disagree," she says, her voice oddly soft, "it is because of the actions of Sir Bedivere, as I remember him, that you and I are able to speak like this."</p>
<p>The worst of it is over. There's no reason it should hurt this much, to speak with this particular iteration of her.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," Bedivere sobs. "I'm <em>sorry</em>. I never— you never should have—"</p>
<p>She drops her hand from his face, then, only to bring her arm around his shoulders and pull him close to her — and he's served this king for a long time, but even in all those many moons, he could never have imagined an outcome like this — where he is here, in this facility so far removed in a future that he could scarcely imagine not too long ago, surrounded by friends that he's long made his peace with abandoning.</p>
<p>—where he is here, with his king in a form that should have never existed in the first place, and yet was made manifest by the weight of his most grievous sin.</p>
<p>"You've fought for so very long, Sir Bedivere," says his king, softly, "and for that... I couldn't ask for a better knight. But you need not fight any longer — not as you have, for all this time." Her fingers curl into his hair, as she presses it forward, into her collarbone. "But for the time being, you need not feel ashamed for asking for help. We all — I will provide it, should you have need for it."</p>
<p>He should be doing more than this — her station demands more. And yet, it's all he can do to remain there, with her, and try to come to terms with where he is.</p>
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